"It certainly is a judgment, and one for which, I am afraid, Mr. Plumber was not prepared. But I flatter myself that no man, if the thing comes within my cognisance, is able to print another man's works as his own without my being able to detect and convict him of his guilt. I have not been on the look out for plagiarists all my life for nothing."
The vicar's glance came down. He seemed all at once to become conscious of his surroundings. He looked about him with a startled air, as if he had been roused from a trance. He seemed quite curiously agitated. The words which he uttered were spoken a little wildly, as if he himself was not quite certain what it was that he was saying.
"I have to thank you for all that you have said, gentlemen, and I can only assure you that the remarks which you have made demand, and shall receive, my most serious consideration. With regard to the papers"--he glanced at the two papers which he still was holding--"with regard to these papers, with your permission, Mr. Ingledew, I will retain them for the present. They shall be returned to you later." The owner of the papers nodded assent. "And now that all has been said which there is to say, I have to ask you, gentlemen, to leave me, and--and I wish you all good-day."
The vicar himself opened the study door. He seemed almost to be hustling his visitors out of the room, his anxiety to be rid of them was so wholly undisguised. It is possible that both Mr. Luxmare and Mr. Ingledew would have liked to have made a few concluding observations, but neither of them was given a shred of opportunity. When, however, Mr. Plumber made a movement as if to go, Mr. Harding motioned to him with his hand to stay. And the vicar and the curate were left alone.
A stranger would have found it difficult to decide which of the two seemed the more shame-faced. The curate still stood where he had been standing all through, leaning on his stick, with his eyes on the ground; while the vicar, with his grasp still on the handle of the door, stood with his face turned towards the wall. It was with an apparent effort that, moving towards his writing table, placing Mr. Ingledew's two papers in front of him, he seated himself in his accustomed chair. Taking off his spectacles, with his hands he gently rubbed his eyes as if they were tired.
"Dear, dear!" he muttered, as if to himself. He sighed. He added, still more to himself, "The Lord's ways are past our finding out." Then he addressed himself to the curate.
"Mr. Plumber!" Although the vicar spoke so softly, his hearer seemed to shrink away from him. "I have a confession which I must make to you." The curate looked up furtively, as if in fear.
"When I was a young man I did many things of which I have since had good reason to be ashamed. Among the things, I used to write what Mr. Ingledew would say correctly enough it would be flattering to call nonsense. I regret to have to tell you that I wrote those verses to which Mr. Ingledew has just called our attention in that dead and gone Camford magazine."
The curate stood up almost straight.
"Sir!--Mr. Harding!"